Gamehelplettertycoon

Game play

• Build words using letter cards to earn money and stock.
• Use money to buy letter patents.
  • Patents earn royalties when their letter is used.
  • Some patents grant additional abilities.
• The final round is triggered when one player's patents sum to a given value.
• At the end of that round, the player with the highest combined value of patents, money, and stock wins!

Components

Letter "Factory" Cards

• One of 102 cards each with a letter.
• Some letters are more common than others.
  • See letter frequency game card

Player Hand

• Each player has a hand of 7 letter cards.
• Players always draw back to 7 at the end of their turn to replace any cards they have played or discarded.

Community Pool

• A shared, face-up set of 3 letter cards available for use by any player.
• These are also replaced at the end of each turn.

Money (or Coins)

• Earned by playing words, or through patent royalties.
• Used to buy patents.
• Winning or losing challenges can also earn or cost money.

Stock

• Earned by playing longer words. Grants points at the end of the game, but cannot be spent.

Letter Patents

• Each letter has one patent.
• Patents may be purchased with money; costs range from $2 to $10.

Royalties

• The owner of a letter patent earns $1 for each matching letter played by another player.
• Players don't earn royalties on their own words, or for special letters generated by patent abilities.

Player Turn

• On your turn, you may build a word using letter cards from your hand or from the community pool.
• Each word must contain at least one card from your hand and be at least 3 letters long.

• If your word is not challenged successfully, you earn money and stock depending on its length.
• Some patent or letter abilities may increase earnings.

• Other players earn royalties for the patents they own.

• Then, you may buy a patent.
• You many only buy one patent per turn, and its letter must match a letter in the word(s) you just played.
• You must also have enough money to purchase the patent.
• Each patent can only be owned by one player
• Once a patent has been purchased, it cannot be purchased by another player.

• The community pool is refilled, and then you may choose to discard any number of the cards in your hand.
• Finally, your hand is refilled to 7 cards.

Special Abilities

Patents

Patent abilities may be used at most once per turn.

Some patents grant special abilities:

B Patent Ability

• Earn double if your word begins and ends in vowels.
• Both money and stock are doubled.

J Patent Ability

• Earn double if vowels are at least half of your word.
• Both money and stock are doubled.

K Patent Ability

• Earn double if your word has only one vowel.
• Both money and stock are doubled.

Q Patent Ability

• You may replace a card to start your turn.
• You may discard and draw before playing words.

V Patent Ability

• You may build two words. Each word earns money and stock individually.
• Other patent abilities may be applied to one word or the other, not both.
• Each word must contain at least one card from your hand and be at least 3 letters long.

X Patent Ability

• You may use one letter card twice.

  That is, you may duplicate a letter.

• You must use at least 3 real (not duplicated or generated) letter cards total.
  • If playing two words with the ‘V’ patent ability, a letter from the first word may be duplicated in the second.
  • Other players do not earn additional royalties on the second copy of this duplicated letter.

Z Patent Ability

• You may add an ‘S’ to the end of your word.
• This must form an acceptable word.
• You may not purchase the ‘S’ patent without using a real ‘S’ letter card.
• Other players do not earn royalties on this generated ‘S’.

Letters

Some letters also have special abilities:

Q Letter Ability

• Words with ‘Q’ earn double (both money and stock).
• This ability is independent of the ‘Q’ patent ability.

Y Letter Ability

• Player decides whether each ‘Y’ is treated as a consonant or a vowel for patent abilities.

Challenges

Player Challenges

• In the default rules, players may challenge other player's words.
• If the challenged word(s) are not in the dictionary, the challenge succeeds and the active player takes back their cards, loses the rest of their turn, and must discard a card as a penalty.
• If the word(s) are in the dictionary, the challenge fails and the challenger must pay the active player $1.
  • If the challenger has no money, the active player takes $1 from the bank.

Automatic Challenges

This version implements a challenge variant to smooth online play.

• In the automatic challenge variant, players may not challenge.
• Instead, every play is automatically challenged by the system.
• If the word(s) are in the dictionary, play proceeds.
• If the word(s) are not in the dictionary, the player may be allowed to retry
  • Depending on the variant configuration; default is 3.
  • If they run out of retries, they take back their cards, lose the rest of their turn, and must discard a card as penalty.

Word Scoring

Word Length	Money	Stock
3 letters	$1	0
4 letters	$2	0
5 letters	$3	0
6 letters	$4	1
7 letters	$6	1
8 letters	$6	2
9 letters	$6	3
10 letters	$6	4
11 letters	$6	5
12 letters	$6	6

Goals

Players	Patents Value	Minimum Number of Patents
2	$45	6
3	$34	5
4	$26	3
5	$21	3

Dictionaries

• Note that this game is designed to be played with English (American or British) words.
• Playing words in other languages isn't supported by the game design.

Two dictionaries may be used:

NWL 2018

• North American Scrabble Players Association Word List 2018
  • This is the default

CWL 2019

• Collins Scrabble Words 2019 (formerly SOWPODS)
  • This contains obscure words